Davos is one of the world's prime networking venues for economists, bankers and diplomats, writes Oliver Staley for Bloomberg. Yale University sees it as an opportunity to do business, too, entertaining potential donors and recruiting world leaders to teach on campus. Yale isn't the only US university to send a delegation to the Swiss ski resort last week to discuss the environment, technology, communications and the economy. Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago are also sent groups and sponsored events.

US universities are increasing their presence at the World Economic Forum as they compete for faculty and students with foreign institutions and as they try to attract international donors, said Donald Heller, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. It's important for them to be visible at forums where universities from other countries will be present, he said.

"In this country, we're much more concerned with international competitiveness than in years past," Heller said. "It's no longer just where Harvard stands, vis-a-vis Princeton, but it's where it stands vis-a-vis Oxford and Cambridge and the University of Shanghai." Linda Koch Lorimer, Yale's Vice President and Secretary, said the university's presence at the 2008 event led to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair led to Blair becoming a Yale fellow and teaching at the university. "In the last few years, a number of universities have recognised that this is a very convenient, easy and inexpensive way to have a gathering of graduates, parents and friends in one small town," Lorimer said.

Source: University World News